


Cupid Stark

by lilsmartass



Category: Marvel Avengers Movies Universe, The Avengers (2012)
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Gen, Humour, Shmoop
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-22
Updated: 2012-09-22
Packaged: 2017-11-14 19:09:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,217
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/518557
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lilsmartass/pseuds/lilsmartass
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Summary: For this prompt on the kinkmeme: Clint/Natasha Tony is slightly horrified the two assassins aren't banging, so he makes it his business to set them up, because living with two such attractive assassins that aren't having sex is downright sinful. They are his Barbie and Action Man dolls to smush together and make kissy noises with, dammit! Clint and Natasha are equal parts embarrassed and amused by all of this, and decide to play up to it for Tony's sake. Shenanigans ensue..</p>
            </blockquote>





	Cupid Stark

**Author's Note:**

> Rating: PG-13 for cursing
> 
> Disclaimer: Not mine,. Additionally, cookies to anyone who can tell me which bit I stole fro Toy Story 3.
> 
> Warning: Tony 
> 
> Genre: disgusting diabetes causing shmoop, fluff, humour

It was shocking. It was so shocking, so unbelievable, that Tony Stark (who’d been practicing his nochelant disinterest in even the most outrageous things since infancy) couldn’t help his voice rising in astonishment. “You’ve never? Seriously? _Never_?”

For his part, Clint didn’t even raise his eyes from the television set where he was focussing all of his considerable attention, X-box controller gripped tightly in white knuckled hands, thumb pounding the X key. “Shoot! Shoot you stupid bastard! No not _there_ at the- fuck’s sake. No we’ve never done anything Stark. Will you just _fucking_ jump.”

Tony gaped for a full five seconds, possibly because he was having to filter out Clint’s ranting at the video game, but also because he was simply unable to believe his ears. “But _why_? You don’t...” for a moment Tony was at a loss for words, not because he had a problem with it per se but because he was unaccustomed to being tactful but suspected that when trying to ask Clint Barton superspy/assassin/sniper if he was gay, tact might be called for. “You don’t play for the home team?”

“No don’t jump in the death pit! What are you talking about Stark?”

“Do you do guys?” Tony asked, throwing tact to the wind.

Clint dropped the control, now seemingly uncaring of the game over screen which floated up and swivelled in his seat to face Tony. Tony took an instinctive step back but didn’t lower his frank gaze. “No,” he gritted out. “I just don’t do Natasha either. She’s like my sister.”

“Your really really hot sister. C’mon, you two must have loads in common and you’re not...unattractive. Not really in Romanov’s league but who is? And she’d crush most pretty boys like bugs.”

Tony was pretty sure he heard Clint’s teeth grind together as he forced himself to say calmly. “We’re still not Tony.”

“So, all this time, I wasn’t hitting on Natasha in case you shot me and I could have been?”

“No,” Natasha said from behind him, making him jump as he wondered how long she’d been there listening, “You don’t hit on me because I can – and will – break every bone in your body if you try.” She glided past him, leaving Tony dumbfounded and staring and dropped onto the couch beside Clint. “You need to avoid the sharks in the water.”

Tony shook his head at them but stayed silent. They were perfect together, clearly they just needed some help to see it. And who said Tony Stark never did anything nice for others.  

***

His first plan was simple, it always worked in movies. He set JARVIS up with a new subroutine, “So sir, next time Agents Barton and Romanov are in the elevator together, you want me to cease to function and _lock them in_.”

“You make this sound like an unreasonable plan.” There was a silence from the AI which spoke volumes. “It’s a good idea,” he insisted, “a great idea even. I’ve invented the Iron Man suit and a sentient AI, and I save the world on a not infrequent basis, but this is going to be what I go down in history for.”

“If you say so sir.”

“I do say so. Just make sure you do your part. And don’t tell them.”

“Of course not sir,” said JARVIS with deadly politeness.

This plan, badly thought out as it was, did not, of course work, and Tony was less than impressed with the fact that Natasha had stripped out half the wires in the elevator before realising that they were for the entertainment system and the lights, not for the elevator’s movement.

***

“So,” said Tony, sitting down beside Natasha on the sofa where she’s stretched out painting her nails and smiling at her in what he fondly imagined was a charming and endearing way and in fact made him look a bit like a serial killer. Not one to be easily off put, Natasha carried on painting her toenails with the shimmery Peach Blossom and raised an eyebrow in question. “You’ll never guess what Clint was telling me.”

“I’m not very interested in what Clint was telling you. He only tells lies anyway.”

Tony ignored her. “He told me he though you looked hot in that purple dress you had to wear for that benefit thing Pepper made you go to.”

Years of work as a spy prevented her from spilling her nail varnish, laughing in his face, or looking completely amazed. Instead she managed a disinterested, “Hmmm.”

Tony was not discouraged. “Yeah. He sort of gave me the idea that he had a thing for you.”

“He doesn’t.”

“He might. You’re really hot.”

“Stark, you’ve saved my life a couple of times, so I’m going to assume that was a compliment and not the chauvinistic crap it sounded like and not kill you with my nail file. Consider it paying a debt”

“You’re hot, brilliant and a scarily deadly ninja?”

“Better.”

“But Clint-”

“Barton does not, and never has, except for one evening, once, wanted that from me.”

“One evening once?”

“There was a lot of tequila, a near death experience and he had just killed his brother. I think he was entitled to a little out of character action.”

“Well what about you. Don’t you think Clint’s hot?”

“...No. He’s too annoying to be hot.”

“Wait, yesterday you told me I was, and I quote, more annoying than Barton.”

“And you’ll notice Stark, I don’t find you hot either.”

That seemed to flummox Tony more than anything else. “Huh. Look, about Clint-”

“Oh I see, I know where this is going.”

“You do? Well...”

“I don’t think he does guys Stark, but if he does there’s no hard feelings. None. I won’t feel like you’re getting in my way if you want to hit on him.”

“No, I...”

“Actually, now I think about it, you two would be really good together. You’re the only people who think each other’s jokes are funny.”

Tony could feel this situation spinning wildly out of hand, “No that’s not what I-”

“Actually, you’d probably be great together. And, together, you’d have the added advantage of being unable to reproduce so the next generation would be spared you irritation.”

Tony decided retreat was the better part of valour and left. Natasha smiled, her ability to manipulate Tony Stark into leaving her in peace from his crazy schemes was intact.

***

Tony’s next plan was certain to work. Natasha had said that Clint had once hit on her when he was drunk, and if there was something Tony knew about, it was getting drunk. The plan was simple. He arranged for a cocktail night and, in a piece of brilliant forward planning (if he did say so himself) he arranged for said cocktail night one night when Thor and Bruce had other engagements. Steve could be relied on to skip something like that which meant that Clint and Natasha would be alone together, well, except for him and he was a facilitator, he was there to keep their drinks topped up, the lights on low and the music soft. Easy.

Not easy.

Natasha, it turned out, could hold her liquor. Tony was swaying on his feet and Natasha was still downing shots like water. Worse, because crazy alcohol assimilating terminator she might be, but she had to reach tolerance eventually, but Clint wasn’t even drinking. Apparently the food poisoning he’d spent the last week laid up with had left his stomach only able to cope with water and crackers.

Still, Tony wasn’t about to be deterred. He’d bought enough alcohol to start his own bar, and Natasha had said tequila had worked before. Maybe painkillers would have the same effect. Unfortunately, drunk as he was, Tony totally lacked the ability to slight of hand Clint into taking the pills.

Plan B then, maybe shots would have the same on Natasha, not make her want herself...though...actually, that was a really hot thought. Tony shook his head to clear it. Right, shots, Clint, Natasha. Natasha was now playing cards with Clint and sipping her drink in a lady like fashion. Well that wasn’t going to work.

Using his powers of persuasion (re: irritating Natasha into it) he managed to instigate a drinking competition. Which would have been fine, had he not already been so drunk that it took him three tries to sit down at the table without hitting the floor before they’d even started. Natasha flatly refused to play strip anything, and within minutes he’d lost $200 to her. Which wasn’t a problem exactly, he was good for the money, he was a billionaire, but it was, quite frankly, humiliating. It also wasn’t working. Natasha just wasn’t getting drunk. How could she possibly be able to do this? This must be her superpower, Tony thought vaguely, he tried to slur a note to JARVIS to remind him to experiment on it tomorrow, but the words kept getting twisted up and wouldn’t come out right. He decided to try and remember it instead.

It was time for plan C. Unfortunately, Tony hadn’t thought of a plan C. He hadn’t thought he’d need one. He sat, well sort of fell, onto the sofa to think. He was good at thinking, he was a genius, thinking was kind of this thing. He shared this thought with Clint who patted him on the hand. “You are going to regret this tomorrow,” the archer said.

He shut his eyes, to speed up the thinking process.

The next thing he knew, it was morning, his head was aching fit to burst and he was in the room alone, still curled on the sofa in jeans and last night’s shirt and under what he strongly suspected was Natasha’s long pink cashmere coat.

He groaned and buried his face into the cushions. Another failed plan, and this one had left him thinking he was actually going to die if he kept this up. “JARVIS,” he moaned, “Make someone bring me aspirin.” Maybe he should just give up now.

***

“Barton, get in here,” Natasha said opening the door of her room at the precise moment that Clint passed by. He didn’t even allow himself to wonder how she did that. It was beyond creepy, but it was also so common place that he had ceased to comment on it. He followed her into the room. “We have to stop Stark and his ridiculous matchmaking efforts,” she said when he was inside, crowding him against the door.  

“Really? I think it’s funny. He’s like a puppy with a new toy.”

The knife thunked into the door beside his ear. Clint didn’t flinch. “Will you still think it’s funny when I dismember him and start hiding pieces in your room?”

Clint laughed, “Fine, fine, we’ll stop him. How?”

Natasha smiled a bit manically, this time, Clint flinched. “I have a plan.”

***

The next morning, Toy stumbled blearily in the kitchen and headed straight for the coffee machine. He stabbed a couple of buttons and then glared balefully at the machine when it refused to produce coffee any faster than its fastest possible speed. Slowly, as the smell of coffee began to bring his brain back online soft sighs and giggles and quietly muttered words began to filter themselves into his brain. He turned slowly. At the far side of the table Clint was sitting in a chain, Natasha was straddling his lap and his hands were clinched around her waist. For a second Tony thought they were doing something which would make him want to join in and he opened his mouth to make a well deserved smutty remark.

His mouth stayed open, gaping in disbelief as Natasha leant forward and rubbed her nose to his with a soft giggle. “No I love you the most sugar lump-kins,” she said with aching tenderness.

Grabbing his three quarters full coffee mug, Tony backed out of the kitchen in horror.

Later, Natasha turned up in the workshop with a new refill of coffee and a smile.

“What’s this for?” Tony asked, taking it and peering apprehensively into the cup.

Natasha beamed, the smile taking ten years off her face and making her look like a teenager, “Just in a good mood. What? I can’t do something nice?”

“...Uh, OK,” said Tony, uncertainly.

If possible, Natasha’s smile widened further, “Anytime.”

***

Things did not improve over the next few days. Tony had been sure that they would have fucked all this dippy romantic shit out of one another by now, but no luck, apparently being in love had turned both Clint and Natasha into sappy teenagers, which made sense he supposed, since they’d never got to be sappy teenagers when they actually were teenagers but still...Was there actually any need for them to spend Chinese food night gazing into one another’s eyes and feeding each other pieces of fruit and meat.

Tony loved Chinese food. It was probably his favourite thing to eat. And he’d never admit it, but sitting down and eating with the others, like a real family dinner, gave him a buzz. It had to be a really important meeting followed by a really impressive threat from Pepper to make him miss Chinese food night. He hadn’t thought anything would ever be able to ruin it, but then, he’d never had to listen to a conversation peppered with increasingly ridiculous endearments.

He loved Natasha, he did, but Clint was his bro and he felt like he should protect his friend’s manhood from the irreparable damage it would suffer from allowing himself to be called, “Angel cakes,” _in front of people_.

When he tried to talk to Clint about it later though, Clint smiled and nodded and agreed at the pauses Tony left for him in a long rant with many hand gestures, and then asked what Tony thought he should buy Natasha for their three day anniversary.

***

And then there was movie night, the least said about that the better. Since he was the last one into the room, Tony was the one who had to sit next to the lovebirds. The sofa wasn’t really big enough to seat three of them, but Natasha solved that problem by climbing into Clint’s lap and twining around him like a creeper vine. Throughout the slow parts of the move, and the loud parts of the movie, and the boring talking parts of the movie, they tittered at each other like birds and exchanged soft butterfly kisses.

Under normal circumstances Tony would have said something, or kicked them, or got up and got a bucket of ice to tip over them. This time though, he’d gone to such trouble to set them up, and despite the fact that the Cap’s ears were turning pinker every time they kissed, he was pretty sure that Steve might shout at him for disrupting everything to set them up and then disrupting everything again to break them up. And he hated Steve shouting at him. He always looked so...disappointed and it always made Tony feel about two inches tall.

So he just had to endure, even as the situation got more and more awkward, with a giggle, Clint slipped his hand under Natasha’s top. He didn’t appear to be doing anything interesting under there, just stroking over her ribs. “I love you,” he whispered, and Tony was certain that if he turned and looked he would be surrounded by a stream of cartoon hearts.

“I think I’m getting diabetes just listening to this sweetness,” he muttered. Bruce threw a pillow at him, and Clint thoroughly ignored him, tickling Natasha and sending her into a squirming squealing fit.

They apparently stayed in the room long after the movie finished, because the next morning when Tony got up, the room, and the kitchen, were not only spotlessly tidy but there were a stack of interior decorating designs on one of the tables and a list of decorating ideas in Natasha’s neat handwriting on the coffee table.

***

Possibly the most awkward thing was the night he was heading down from the first stage of testing some new exploding arrows for Clint on the roof and had to pass through Natasha’s floor to get back to the workshop. Mostly sequestered in an alcove in the corridor he found Natasha and Clint giggling at one another and taking it in turns to say alternate words to make up the phrase, “I love you.”

He backed away slowly, deciding to go back to the roof and have JARVIS send up the suit rather than walk past the saccharine moment.

And when he did, at last, make it back to his bedroom, he found an elaborate box of his favourite, disgustingly expensive chocolate outside his door with a card on top in Clint’s scrawl reading ‘Thank you for giving me what I never knew I was missing, true love.’ Tony ate the chocolates, but he still found the whole thing weird.

***

It was time to call in reinforcements. “Bruce,” he said, dragging Bruce into his own lab the next morning. “I have a problem.” Bruce looked like he knew exactly what Tony wanted to say, but he folded his arms, raised an eyebrow and waited. Tony heaved a put upon sigh, “Fine OK, have your fun at my expense. I shouldn’t have set up Clint and Natasha, they’re driving me crazy.”

“So they shouldn’t be in love because it annoys you?”

“No! No, that’s not what I’m saying just...”

“Just?”

“Just can’t they go back to being three quarters evil and the rest sarcastic.”

“You mean, go back to being themselves?”

“Yes, exactly! I just want them to be how they were before.”

“When they told you they didn’t want to be together?”

“Yeah.”

“And you wouldn’t listen and wouldn’t take no for an answer.”

Tony didn’t answer. His scowl deepened but his eyes were sharp.

“You wouldn’t take no for an answer and wanted them to change an opinion they’ve had a long time to think about,” Bruce pushed.

Tony heaved another sigh, “I’ve been trolled haven’t I?”

“If it’s any consolation to you, Natasha is a master.”

“Does everyone know?”

“Yup.”

“Fuck.”

“They don’t want to that’s the point.”

Tony raised his hands, palms flat in surrender. “Ok OK I get it, no more trying to play matchmaker, fine.”

Bruce nodded in satisfaction, “Good.”

***

After that, things quickly went back to normal. Chinese food night was no longer a thing to be dreaded and Tony was able to reclaim his usual place between Steve and Thor on the big sofa on movie night. It was on one such night that Tony’s eyes happened to stray from the screen and across the room. On the tiny two man sofa that he’d once spent an awkward evening on Pepper was sitting next to Coulson. They were sharing a bowl of popcorn and their heads were close together from the occasional comments on the appallingly bad everything in Clint’s choice of the evening: Dinocroc vs Supergator.

They looked cozy pressed up against each other, Pepper was laughing softly, and even Coulson was smiling. They both deserved to be happy. Tony hid his own smile. He had a plan.

    

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